Lee writings discovered in '02 provide insight

The Associated Press

Published Friday, May 25, 2007

RICHMOND, Va. -- Five years after the discovery of two wooden trunks containing letters and other writings by Gen. Robert E. Lee, the Virginia Historical Society is making most of the materials available to researchers.

The trunks also contained legal papers, travel souvenirs, financial records and small artifacts that were collected by Lee's eldest daughter, Mary Custis Lee. They were found at Burke & Herbert Bank & Trust Co. in Alexandria in 2002.

Mary Custis Lee's heirs chose the Historical Society as stewards of the collection, which historians consider significant because the Confederate general never wrote a memoir.

"One of the great things about this collection for me is it's very broad in terms of what we can learn about Lee," said Lee Shepard, the society's director of manuscripts and archives. "It's not just the Civil War, though there is good Civil War content."

Other subjects covered in the writings, he said, include Lee's time on the Texas frontier before the war and his presidency of Washington College -- now Washington & Lee -- in Lexington, Va., after the war.